Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Alternate headline: U.S. Public School System: making the case for home-schooling on a daily basis

Have a moral objection to providing certain healthcare services to your employees? Tough luck, champ. Hand over the pill. Think that turkey sandwich is part of a healthy home-packed lunch for your cheap labor. Think again - and will that be cash or charge for the chicken nuggets?

More bad behavior from the excrable Department of Health and Human Services:

A North Carolina elementary school forced a preschool student to eat cafeteria chicken nuggets for lunch on Jan. 30 after officials reportedly determined that her homemade meal wasn’t up to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s standards for healthfulness, according to a report from the Carolina Journal.

The newspaper reported that the four-year-old girl brought a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, potato chips and apple juice in her packed lunch from home. That meal didn’t meet with approval from the government agent who was on site inspecting kids’ lunches that day.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Child Development and Early Education requires that all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs must meet USDA guidelines. Meals, the guidelines say, must include one serving each of meat, milk and grain and two servings of fruit or vegetables. Those guidelines apply to home-packed lunches as well as cafeteria meals.

The Carolina Journal reported that the girl and her mother wish to remain anonymous to avoid public scrutiny, but she did write to her state representative to complain about it.

“I don’t feel that I should pay for a cafeteria lunch when I provide lunch for her from home,” the mother wrote in a complaint to her state representative, Republican G.L. Pridgen of Robeson County.

“What got me so mad is, number one, don’t tell my kid I’m not packing her lunch box properly,” the girl’s mother told a reporter. “I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats. It always consists of a fruit. It never consists of a vegetable. She eats vegetables at home because I have to watch her because she doesn’t really care for vegetables.”

Personal supervision of the kid's diet because the parent knows she won't eat veggies on her own sounds like the very model of responsible parenting which, we're sure, puzzles the hell out of Sebelius' thugs.

7 comments:

Meals, the guidelines say, must include one serving each of meat, milk and grain and two servings of fruit or vegetables. Those guidelines apply to home-packed lunches as well as cafeteria meals.

Wait a minute.... *runs over to the fridge to grab the glossy printout that the state sent to her*

Also, I'd be horrified to send my kid to school with "100% juice" as advised by the mailing-- which I didn't ask for, and which has followed me without updating-- I always water down the juice to try to prevent dehydration from the sheer amount of sugar.I'm going to assume they meant "protein," not meat.

1 serving of protein is an egg, an ounce of meat or up to half a cup of beans/lentils.A serving of dairy is half a cup of milk/yogurt, or 3/4 oz of cheese.A serving of grain is a half slice of bread, 1/4 cup pasta or 1/4 cup cereal.a serving of fruit/veggies is "1/8-1/4 cup," or 1/8 cup dry.

Anyways, my point is:Their minimum requirement is half a cup of fruit or veggies (a fruit cup?), a whole egg, a handful of cereal and a Laughing Cow wedge.

The parents in our school district here in VC just had to beat back some outsider food nazi's who wanted to make our kids' lunches even less appetizing ....AND they wanted to outlaw sack lunches so kids would have to eat the putrid cafeteria slop!!! (like they do in France). God bless the Hispanic and Native American moms for eating the do-gooders alive for being culturally insensitive to what their families eat. Nannies backed out apologizing faster than you can say "Liberal on Liberal bitch slap." But I know they'll be back, like the soy peddling cockroaches they are.

P.S. I'm on campus almost every day...God help the "government agent" who tries to force a school lunch down my kid...before I'm dragged away in handcuffs, it will get good...and...ugly.

I don't see what didn't meet the guidelines, there was meat, dairy, grain, and 2 fruits.

My wife is a pre-school teacher, she's coming home all the time with inane regulations they have to follow. And yes, there are discussions about 'augmenting' lunches. The thing is, the kid doesn't have to eat anything, but it has to be offered.

I think we need more regulations not less. For example, there are not enough satisfactory beds in the classrooms for those students who sleep through their lessons. Sleeping in their chairs could cause injury!